Having endured an unreal week of "checks" -- more
like unhinged minority checkmates, defenders of majority rule must yearn for
those legendary "balances" that save us from rightwing extortion.
What felt first like a mugging escalated into a national home invasion, like a
marathon House filibuster mercifully absent non-stop talking on Cruz control.
Thank goodness, the president banned domestic torture.

If nothing breaks, thuggish House rubes trump the Senate,
the White House, federal agencies, and a growing majority aghast at leaps off
the cliff solely to dramatize one's purity. Who let the howling dogs in? Behind
colorful depictions for this new civil war (ransom, hijacking, hostage-taking,
sabotage, nullification, and coercion) looms a larger issue: whether the
world's most trusted method of conflict resolution, majority rule, keeps on
ruling -- or disintegrates.

For what no ultra-rightwinger can dispute, minority
fulminations assert some willful scheme that defies the core sovereignty of
everyone else. Other than impeachment against "the outsider," how
else can cornered, sainted TP zealots avoid converse with "evil"? For
many of us, figuring on a quick retreat after initial posturing, we underestimated
how theocratic crusades feed on opposition, convinced they must punish wicked
"enemies" they cannot subdue.

Apocalypse on Tap

Before belittling House grandstanding, remember the Senate
remains the hothouse that instructs minorities how to master strangleholds.
Without arcane rules or filibusters, House insurgencies are stuck with the
power of the purse, even when wielded like handbags against Obama's head. No
need to wait for God's apocalypse when TP fanatics can bring down apocalypse
now. As polling clearly rejects the replacement of majority with minority rule,
perhaps next year's mid-term will punish traitors to our credit status and
belief the majority deserves to be in charge at critical times.

More painful still, malefactors face no direct
punishment, short of recall or forced departures, as only the House disciplines
its members. Imagine the outrage (or relief) if an equally pugnacious president
sent in the Marines to deal with extortion that jeopardizes national security?
Forget surgical drones: where's benevolent dictatorship when we need it?

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In fact, House insurgents torpedo this most elemental
political value, alongside rampant fundraising and fudging, held sacrosanct by
countless nationalities across countless eras. Though majority rule was
formalized by early Greeks, even our dullest cavemen brethren (early Tea
Partiers) understood that six he-men could subdue four rivals, thus the rough
equivalence that might does make right. If pathology is an irrational
discrepancy from sensible, human norms, do not House nutcases qualify when
scorning majority rule -- especially without a real issue on the table (whether Obamacare,
Obama, or the sacred rights of non-Tea Baggers)?

Tyranny of the Minority

In effect, when 20% overwhelms 80%, minority votes are
awarded four times more weight than everyone else's. When 20% commands 80%,
one-person, one-vote goes out the window, along with the need to count votes at
all. Thus a mundane budget impasse explodes into a Constitutional crisis over
which our hallowed system has no resolution. Intransigent minorities almost
never fix problems but certainly make mush of reality.

This is not rocket science. The North didn't smack down the
South because of moral superiority, nor its absence of racism. There were four
times the northerners (22 million vs. 5.5 white southerners) who controlled
scads more money and resources, empowering an effective embargo and strong leaders who
defied intimidation. Interestingly, roughly the same number informing the Tea
Party (20%) populate the Confederate 20% who unilaterally seceded to kickstart a holy "war of independence." Such linkages show ornery
insurgents fail to learn from history and also reflect something deep in human
nature. The authoritarian beat goes on, especially in benighted hinterlands.

All this brouhaha makes me consider how the Declaration of
Independence needs serious updating were it to represent all of the people,
thus:

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A Tea Party Declaration of Independence

When in the Course of ideological zeal, it becomes necessary
for an outvoted and displaced minority to dissolve its political
bands with the majority, and to assume the divinely-ordained powers that
Nature's Good awards those more than equal, a begrudging respect to
suspect rivals requires that minority should declare the causes which impel
this insurgency. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that Tea Partiers are
created separate and more than equal, endowed by their Creator with higher,
better, unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the
righteous dispatch of other people's Happiness. That to secure what God really
meant to do, without quite saying, Governments are instituted among
right-thinking Christian Men, deriving their just and anointed powers from tribal conviction, That whatever any Form of Government becomes destructive of
these ends, Right-thinking supremacists must abolish it and institute a new
Government, by any means possible, laying its foundation to satisfy the
Superiority and Happiness of beings deservedly closer to the right hand of
Goodness. Praise the Lord.

Does this not capture today's minority outrage against the
blatant "tyranny of the majority"? Would honest Tea Partiers
deny this declaration? It's so hard being the most exceptional members of the
most exceptional country on earth. Will the tyrannical majority, masters
at oppressing the noble minority, not ultimately be held accountable, if
not now then by Nature's God? Or will old-time claptrap about government
of the people, for the people, and by the people go by the wayside? Or any
wicked linkage between "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness"
with the "common welfare" that asserts the greatest good for greatest
number? What a conundrum!

For a decade, Robert S. Becker's rebel-rousing essays on politics and culture analyze overall trends, messaging and frameworks, now featured author at OpEdNews, Nation of Change and RSN. He appears regularly at Dissident Voice, with credits (more...)